iGallerie d'Italia MilanoCentro Storico / Piazza della Scala
Bellezza e Bruttezza. Ideale, reale, caricaturale nel Rinascimento
This exhibition has ended.
Beauty versus ugliness in the Renaissance: Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, Dürer and Cranach, from classical ideals to realist portraits, monsters and caricature.
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Pieter Bruegel the Younger painted a village where the roofs are tiled with flat cakes, big fish swallow little ones and two fools share a single hood. It hangs with the Flemish fools late in the show, and Il Giorno's critic said the fun here is hunting for details like that.
More than 100 paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts and beauty objects come from lenders including the Louvre, the Prado, the British Museum and the Vatican Museums. You start with classical ideals and a portrait of Simonetta Vespucci attributed to Botticelli, then meet Leonardo's grotesque heads and a room on making yourself beautiful, with cosmetic recipe books, combs and small mirrors. It ends on mismatched couples: Italian pairs, often at the card table, and Northern ones held together by money.
Il Giorno called it refined and very rich. It closes on 18 October. Tickets are €12, free for under-26s, and the Gallerie d'Italia app has a digital guide.
Editor's pick
Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, Dürer and Cranach set Renaissance ideals of beauty against realist portraits, monsters and caricature: the flattering selfie and the candid shot, five centuries early.
Look for
Bruegel the Younger's imaginary village
Look for roofs tiled with flat cakes, big fish eating small ones and two fools squeezed under one hood.
Frans Floris, Pomona (1565)
The goddess sits surrounded by fruit and vegetables beside Pan, with donkey ears and goat horns, in the closing room of mismatched couples.
Giambologna's Morgante on the dragon
The dwarf Morgante rides astride a dragon, in the section on muses, monsters and prodigies.
Leonardo's grotesque heads
A series of his drawings, including a woman's head in profile, pushes faces far past the classical ideal into caricature.
The beauty toolkit
Cosmetic treatises and recipe books sit beside precious combs and small mirrors in the room on making yourself beautiful.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Entry is free for anyone under 26, so children and students pay nothing.
Also at Gallerie d'Italia Milano
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Image credits
8
- Gallerie d'Italia MilanoJwslubbock / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Un Tiziano per MilanoCourtesy of Museo Poldi Pezzoli
- Pina Bausch, Le Sacre du printempsCourtesy of Museo Teatrale alla Scala
- 1946, La Scala rinasceCourtesy of Museo Teatrale alla Scala
- Museo Poldi PezzoliPaolobon140 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Teatrale alla ScalaDaniel Case / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Palazzo CitterioGiovanni Dall'Orto / Wikimedia Commons
- Museo Bagatti ValsecchiMelancholia~itwiki / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0